Two years of drawing complete!

Two years of drawing. What has it done for me?

Ok, so I've cheated a bit here and there, getting behind and then doing several drawings to catch up but there is more than a drawing for every day. 731 days (one was a leap year) more than 731 drawings.

What has it done for me? Well, when I started out my son was very little. I was still in the early days - milky blur! It put some me time there. Some minutes out of each day of nappies, feeding, feeding, feeding, nappies, in which I was me, not just the baby's mum! It has made me happy, it has made me friends, I've received wonderful comments and messages from people who felt that it inspired them or helped them, this has made me feel worthwhile.

As an artist the practice has paid and paid and paid. It's been like a process where I shed all my demons. To begin with I was a quite pragmatic artist, also a designer, and not too prone to over self criticise, but I still started out editing drawings, not good enough? Don't share it, do another. Later I started sharing them with excuses, or explanations, later still I got involved in what people think, do they like it? How many likes can I get? What will people respond to? I went through that into a serene place where I literally DO NOT GIVE A FLYING SQUIRREL what anyone says or thinks of my art! If I like it, or even if I don't, and I know they are right, it's not my best work, I still don't feel diminished or introspective! So what? More art is on the way, it's not rare or precious, I don't need to be in a special mood to make it! I can bang it out every day and I've practised so much I know a good proportion of it is quality work. So all can hate it if they like, I'm impervious. It's a very safe place for an artist to work from.

But you haven't hated it, you have been amazing, many of you have complemented and encouraged me, helped me when I felt it was pointless and celebrated my good days with me. Many people have also joined in, drawing with me and playing the drawing a day game. #drawingadayclub. Thank you all you are wonderful.

With so much time, so many days to fill I've tried everything I fancied. It's not a commission, or a design I need to get paid for so I've just played! Doing things in new media, things I don't normally draw, things in odd colours... Played. I used to have this long reasoned speech I gave about why I couldn't draw people, "Portraiture is a specialised skill, those artists practice just that... On it went, guess what? I can draw people, I can draw anything! Obviously I still have things I like to do and things I'm best at, but no subject or media or style is impossible. I'm unafraid of drawing, there is no working up courage, and  picking my way, trying not to ruin it, heart in mouth. Drawing is an effort free zone! Easy, ok not always perfect  but easy and unconcerned.

It's been so nice to share. My design work is so secret. They make my design house sign a form that says it has not been shown around... I've worked so hard on building up all this design work and I can't show anyone. It was so liberating to show art to all my friends and be in a two way conversation with the viewer!

Ideas, beget ideas, there is no scarcely! I have found the more ideas I "use up" on my drawing a day, the more new ideas I have to make designs, or more drawing a days, use up your best ideas, they are the tip of your idea iceberg! Try it, it's true!

Discipline, oh! Discipline! It's been good discipline to draw everyday, sunstroke or sick kids, grief, happiness, period pains and boredom all transcended by art. Discipline is THE NUT TO CRACK if you want to get anywhere with art, I'm still working on that.  

The collection; I am not collecting any wealth, or power, nor am I about to cure cancer, so I'm not leaving the world or my kids anything very much in the way of a legacy, but I don't want my tomb stone to read "She kept up with the dishes and Netflix." Drawing every day has given me the feeling that I'm not entirely wasting my time. Here is all this work I did and some have enjoyed it.

The future; As I mentioned I have worked very hard to get signed with a great design house. I am going to set some targets on how much design I send them - so I won't be drawing every day next year.

I'm sure I won't be able to resist a bit of non work related art and when that happens, I will share it!

Thank you 731 times for all the support and feedback.

Love, Kirsteen

I've included a few I like from the last two years here:

Manatee to mermaid. Six drawings.

I'm creating a drawing a day just for the art of it.
#drawingadayclub

#createadrawingadayforhumanrights

http://www.youthforhumanrights.org

Four drawings. Elephant, horse, Jasmine and Dylan.

I'm creating a drawing a day, for two years, just for the art of it.
Here are the last few days.
#drawingadayclub

#createadrawingadayforhumanrights
http://www.youthforhumanrights.org

Four drawings, portraits and a woodpecker I photographed back in my garden in England.

I'm creating a drawing a day, for two years, just for the art of it.
The last few days sketches.
#drawingadayclub

#createadrawingadayforhumanrights
http://www.youthforhumanrights.org

Six little drawings, mostly of shells.

I'm creating a drawing a day, for two years, just for the art of it.
Here are the last few days. All are done from life not photos.
#drawingadayclub

#createadrawingadayforhumanrights
http://www.youthforhumanrights.org

Living in Spain: You will think I made this one up!

Living in Spain: You will think I made this up to entertain you, but it's true!!!

One of life's great pleasures for me, and a very rare pleasure, is the fun I get from getting to be gracious about something done to me, that others have been horrible to me for doing to them! To literally be better, and know it! It sometimes happens with ex-boyfriends! It's like Oscar Wild said, "The best revenge is living well." Perhaps mine is a smug, impure pleasure, but if it pans out to being nice in practice - does it matter if I gloat a bit to myself?

Well those of you who have been following my adventure will remember that I had a campervan that I realised was not right for us and sold. It then broke and the buyer went ballistic- threatening to take me to court and forging my signature on a document to try to make the van legally mine again.

This evening I was strolling down the front with my daughter taking selfies with the palm trees wrapped in fairy lights, when who should I meet but the bloke I bought my van from! The Chevy! He was surprised and delighted to see me and said "You made it then!" So I gave him a short version of the breakdown, shipped the van to England, getting quotes to fix it... He was gutted for us and gave me the name of a garage that rebuild classic gearboxes. He kept saying "But I just drove it here and back no problems." I kept saying it's not your fault, it's old and it could have done another 50,000 miles or more, no one knew. He's a nice bloke and it's not his fault! But I got to walk away from treating him with respect and decency thinking "See! That's how that is done, I knew I wouldn't have behaved like those people who bought my previous camper and I just got to prove it!"

I'm also blown away by the coincidence!!! We talked about my trip and his lifestyle so we knew we were both heading to Spain, but it's a big-ish place, I had no idea where in Spain, I was not expecting to meet him on my pre dinner walk!!!

In other news I have failed to stop myself from planning the next van, to take up around this peninsula (France, Spain and Portugal) one day when I get together another shot at it. Here are the plans, and some photos of similar van, and other similar things to help give the idea. Feel free to comment your advice - I only ever listen to advice I like the sound of anyway - sorry, just a personality trait I guess!

Dancing with the sea.

I'm creating a drawing a day, for two years, just for the art of it.
#drawingadayclub

Today's and the last few days. Dancing with the sea, portraits and experiments with clean lines. The girl is the last portrait is sometimes nick named "tiger."

#createadrawingadayforhumanrights

http://www.youthforhumanrights.org

Living in Spain: Fiesta in the siesta!

Fiesta in the siesta!

(Festival in the nap time)

I keep forgetting the siesta. Things are open in the morning, then you rest, go home, eat, then they are open late. Not just cafes and restaurants but estate agents and hardware shops, everything. Just because it's not warm right now does not change the schedule. Little kids are out in the cafés at 9:00 at night on a school day, they have had a nap and are ready to get dinner and go till 11! Yesterday was a fiesta (festival/ bank holiday) we are so used to doing things in the afternoon, we went in the siesta time, no one was there! A few sleepy stall holders kept an eye on their stuff and that of the next stall (shut and covered) while all sensible people were home snoozing. The whole city sported a few dozen people. No one played music, the fiesta was silent, a festival of whispers!

Trying to speak / learn some Spanish!

After consulting google translate I carefully ask "lechi de coco?" The answer "Yes, Madame, coconut milk is right at the end of the isle with the ice cream." So not having to listen for Spanish then!

Or "piña per favour" totally blank expression "pineapple juice please" "Oh! Piña!" "Si piña" clearly my pronunciation sucks! Piña, by the way, is not Spanish, it's Catalan so don't try it in the rest of spain even if you say it right!

I want to be the sort of person who picks up language easily, surly I'm romantic enough for romantic languages, but sadly, when it comes down to it language is remembering verbatim, and I'm really not that sort of student, long after everyone else knows it verbatim, I'm still there playing it back to myself AGAIN! So I watch YouTube videos, carry my phrase book everywhere, constantly look stuff up and get very little learned. In the meantime Tim is absorbing Spanish through his skin, or possibly sublingually, and casualty correcting my pronunciation without having appeared to do any work. Ugh! So frustrating!

Recently Tim has also taken to talking to Jasmine in French, I'm pretty sure it's a sort of, while she's learning all this language, let's throw in another and it's all good education sort of thing, I'm almost certain it's not intended to make me kick them both in the shin for being annoyingly brilliant under my nose!

Some things I don't like about Spain:

You can't home school, well it's difficult, it's sort of a legal grey area. If we were moving here not visiting for 7 months Jasmine would have to go to school, or I would have to go to court and win! I'm told by a friend here (I haven't looked up the law) that you can't renovate your own house or car without a special licence - you have to pay a professional, basically DIY is illegal! You have to take your rubbish to the end of the street and sort it into big bins, they don't pick it up outside your house. No national health service! I would not give up being British for love or money!

Some things I love about Spain.

The indulgent attitude to children and their mess, noise etc. It's almost scary at first, when my two year old ran off toward a road (for the record: I could have caught him up) a man picked him up and hugged him, then carried him into the shop and started showing him the christmas decorations, I hovered around wondering if I should be freaking out! Anyone, anywhere would have stopped my son before the road, but the uninhibited love of kids is forbidden by fears of molesters back home in the UK. People everywhere, talk to my kids, give them food or ruffle their hair without checking with me, not just other mums with kids, just people. After a few days of standing ready to strangle strangers you get to love it. No one is tutting at you for having the two year old spreading scrambled egg all over the bar in the oh-so-cool surf cafe, but they will feed your kids free sugary food before they finish the egg! It's best to relax and go with it! 

I also love the light! I feel renewed as a photographer! Writing with light is so much more possible when you actually get some light! Colour is light reflected off objects into the eye, so more light also means more colour! The Spanish style also includes lots of colour. I feel like I'm feasting on the stuff every day. I feel like Gauguin when he went to French Polynesia, he was always a painter I loved, now his colour makes perfect sense!

Wax resist, palm trees, the mountain and the coast.

I'm creating a drawing a day, for two years, just for the art of it.
#drawingadayclub

#createadrawingadayforhumanrights
http://www.youthforhumanrights.org

More than 700 days of drawing!

I'm creating a drawing a day, for two years, just for the art of it.
Today's is my children relaxing, it's very very windy today as and we are all staying home doing things we like.
#drawingadayclub
I have been drawing for 702 days!

#createadrawingadayforhumanrights

http://www.youthforhumanrights.org